Back to fiction… I remember hearing about Wool when it launched; it was self-published on Amazon in installments. I read a few of the early installments but didn’t complete the online series or buy the book. Wool got so popular, Howey turned it into a best-selling novel. A year before I started writing, something motivated me to find and read Wool… I think I was on a post-apocalyptic jag.
I enjoyed the story and characters. Most importantly, the writing seemed like… something I could do. The prose wasn’t Hemingway or Murukami or Joyce. I later realized Howey did subtle things I didn’t notice at first, such as uniform chapters, classical character arcs, deep explorations of themes, and political opinion. I used to warm up my writing sessions by copying blocks of his writing… the mundane stuff, like how an author jumps between memories and dialogue, or changes scenes. Wool changed my life because it gave me the confidence to write.
